Types of pluractionality and plurality across domains in ʔayʔaǰuθəm

Abstract

In this paper, we examine two markers of verbal plurality, C1C2 reduplicationand ablaut, in PayPaju8@m, a Central Salish language. C1C2 reduplicationmarks event external pluractionality, where subevents are distributed in both spaceand time. It also applies in the nominal domain creating a plurality of individuals, butdoes not impose temporal or spatial distribution in the nominal domain. FollowingHenderson (2012, 2017), we propose that events are individuated through their temporaland spatial traces, so that events distribute in order to pluralize, whereas thisis not required in the nominal domain. Ablaut marks event-internal pluractionalitywhere subevents are grouped into a larger whole (Wood 2007; Henderson 2012,2017). While ablaut pluractionals typically involve numerous subevents that areclosely spaced in time, they can involve as few as two subevents and do not requirestrict adjacency of all subevents. We propose that they denote an atomic groupevent that is mapped to a plurality of events via a membership function (Barker1992). This contrasts with event-internal pluractionals that require a high number oftemporally adjacent subevents and have been analyzed as being grouped throughtheir temporal configuration (Henderson 2012, 2017), indicating that there is morethan one way to group events, just as there is more than one way to group individualsin the nominal domain (Barker 1992; Henderson 2012, 2017).